The Swallow in Chancery

A swallow had built her nest under the eaves of a court of justice. Before her young ones could fly, a serpent gliding out of his hole ate them all up. When the poor bird returned to her nest and found it empty, she began a pitiable wailing. A neighbor suggested, by way of comfort, that she was not the first bird who had lost her young. "True," she replied, "but it is not my little ones that I mourn, but that I should have been wronged in that very place where the injured fly for justice."